


Never Show Fear

by Diary



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bechdel Test Fail, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Canon Character of Color, Gen, Good Slytherins, Hogwarts Fourth Year, POV Multiple, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Yule Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repost.  If he learned anything from those bloody romances his mum’s third husband was so devoted to, it’s girls don’t take kindly to being asked out due to a bet, or in this case, because a boy was vaguely threatened by a fellow housemate. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Show Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Harry Potter.

Shortly after the announcement of the Yule Ball, Blaise is reading and half-listening to the others talking about finding date when he hears, “Scared, Zabini?”

Blaise looks up and immediately feels uneasy. Nott is quiet by nature, and Malfoy’s the only one he ever prods.

“No,” he answers. “I plan on going by myself.”

“Better than Bulstrode, I suppose,” Nott says. “She’s not going at all.”

“That’s not surprising."

Millicent Bulstrode doesn’t even eat in the Great Hall. She has the house-elves deliver her meals to her room.

“It’ll look bad for us.”

Rolling his eyes, Blaise asks, “Me going alone, or Millicent not going at all?”

Everyone knows what Millicent is.

“Both,” Nott answers. “All fourth years and above should attend for the sake of representation. The younger students should attempt to find someone to take them.”

“Well, take it up with Bulstrode, then. I’m not asking anyone to go with me, and her decision not to go is hers.”

“Take her,” Nott orders.

“Why should I?”

“Because everyone is going to call you a coward if you don’t."

Blaise knows he means it as a promise rather than an idle goading.

00

In second year, with her hair in two plaits and her tie taken off, Millicent Bulstrode sat against a tree and wrote.

“Hello,” Blaise said. He sat down. “I’m Zabini. Blaise Zabini.”

She gave a short nod.

He took deep breath. “You broke your quill when Malfoy was talking about wanting all mudbloods dead.”

“I’m not one."

“But you’re not pure,” he quietly said.

She ignored him.

He remembered how, the year before, one of the boys had had the idea to steal stuff from the girls’ dorm. One of the possessions had been a photograph of a handsome man, a hag, and a little girl who took largely after her mother. Another photograph had been of the hag, a grown woman who took after her, and Millicent Bulstrode.

Both pictures been quietly returned with one of her textbooks taken in their place, and no one had really said anything since then, especially not directly to her.

“I’m half-blood, too. My grandfather, he was muggle, and I’m not really sure what my biological dad was. I think my grandmother was either half or muggle-born.”

“That isn’t the sort of thing one should announce,” she responded.

“I’m just saying that, I know what it’s like to worry, with Malfoy talking about how the Dark Lord will return all the time. I’d do anything to protect my mum.”

When he got up to leave, she startled him by saying, “My grandmother might have killed my biological father. I wasn’t planned, but I don’t know if he hurt my mum or not.”

He thought of the stepfathers who never lasted long and of the whispers he heard. It wasn’t the same, really, but he’d came over because he saw something in her he instinctively recognised.

00

In the kitchen, a house-elf bows. “Hello, sir. What sort of sweets would sir like?”

Blaise sighs. “I’m not here for food. Do you know Millicent Bulstrode on a personal level?”

Surely, one of them has to, he reasons. Otherwise, he doesn’t really have any options. He not going to try to find out what her floo address is and floo-call her mother and grandmother, and as far as he knows, Millicent doesn’t have any student friends.

The elf gives him a suspicious look. “Is Miss Millie sick, sir?”

“No." Sliding down onto the floor, he tries, “I assume you know about the Yule ball?”

More house-elves wander over, and he fights down the unpleasantness at being more-or-less surrounded.

“Sir wants to ask Miss Millie to the ball,” the first elf inquires.

“I- think her and I going together would be a good strategic move."

It sounds moronic to his own ears, but Blaise isn’t sure how he’s supposed to do this. If he learned anything from those bloody romances his mum’s third husband was so devoted to, it’s girls don’t take kindly to being asked out due to a bet, or in this case, because a boy was vaguely threatened by a fellow housemate.

Although, it seems even the Malfoys and the Weasleys, of all families, have a largely unspoken agreement they’d take one another over any of the remaining Notts, and aside from the incident with Hermione Granger a few years ago, Bulstrode has always struck him as largely sensible.

“Sir should tell her that, then,” the elf says. The others nod in agreement. “Be nice to Yumiko, Miss Millie’s cat.”

00

In third year, Blaise was stretched out on a common room couch and pretending to read.

“Bulstrode has been visiting the kitchens a lot more, recently,” Pansy whispered.

“What do you expect? Black was supposedly spotted near her neighbourhood. I heard her begging her grandmother to let her come home. Hags usually don’t have much proficiency at magic, you know.”

“But Millicent’s brilliant at charms,” one of the younger girls pointed out.

“’s why she wants so badly to go home. Her mum and grandmother are safer with her there.”

“Why don’t they let her, then?”

Because she’s safer here, Blaise knew.

Suddenly, the girls fell silent, and Blaise chanced a glance up.

Millicent weaved in with her legs bound together and promptly landed face first on the ground. Her cat meowed in bewildered concern and pressed its nose against her back.

Before anyone could do anything, Snape swooped in, undid the curse, and coldly declared, “Fifteen points from Slytherin, Miss Bulstrode, and you can either eat dinner in the Great Hall with everyone else or do without tonight. The elves have been instructed.”

After he left, everyone surrounded her, but she wordlessly pushed past them and headed to the girls’ dorms.

At dinner, he heard Malfoy talking about how Bulstrode had stupidly tried to floo back home without permission.

00

“Zabini.”

Blaise jumps.

Millicent Bulstrode is standing in front of his table with her hair in a plaited bun and her tie undone. “Nott told me you had something important to ask me.”

Of course, he did, Blaise thinks. Why is Nott so bloody determined?

Most of the time, Nott doesn’t bother with trivial things.

Deciding he’s probably safe from curses in the library, Blaise says, “He wants me to ask you to the Yule Ball.”

Sitting down, Bulstrode announces, “That makes sense.”

“How?

Looking around, Millicent quietly answers, “He knows what you are, Zabini. I don’t know how he knows, unless you told him, but he knows. And the death eaters are getting bolder in their regrouping. The Quidditch World Cup is proof of that. If you take someone everyone knows isn’t pure, you, at least, label yourself as a blood traitor. I guess he can’t find solid proof, and this is the next best way.”

Disturbingly, this made a great amount of sense.

Blaise represses a sigh.

He’s never made any real friends, but he misses the days when there was no talk about You-Know-Who returning and the only backstabbing people did was playing mostly harmless pranks on other houses.

Unfortunately, this had only lasted his first year. By the second, Malfoy was on his ‘the Dark Lord will return’ kick, and blood purity suddenly became much more important to everyone in the House.

“Never show fear,” he mutters to himself. Seeing her curious look, he says, “I think we should go together, Bulstrode. The one thing we have in common is that we’d do anything to protect our families. If we start showing a tendency to cower, now, people like Nott will think we’re easy targets. It’s better we present ourselves as ones to be reckoned with.”

For a long moment, she sat quietly.

“You make a good point, Zabini.” Sighing, she says, “My grandmother and mum are going to go ballistic. If we survive whatever’s coming, I will find Nott, one day.”

He finds himself shivering.

0

When the Yule Ball comes, Theodore Nott sits in the common room and watches the couples leave. His eyes fall on Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode. The former is wearing soft-yellow robes, and the latter is wearing lavender robes with a white sash and her hair in a Dutch plait.

As the two link arms and walk out, Millicent’s cat jumps up next to him, and he pets her.

0

Sipping his butterbeer, Blaise says, “Moody isn’t too bad. He treats us fairly for a Gryffindor professor.”

“He’s teaching us important things,” Millicent agrees. “As long as we don’t get another one like Lockhart.”

“Lockhart was easy to manipulate.”

“All we learned from him was that, occasionally, idiots do make it into positions of power,” she responds. “And even that, most of us already knew. It would have been nice to not have confirmation at such a young age.”

Slow music starts, and she stands. “I enjoy slow dancing.”

Suddenly nervous, Blaise stands. He tries to figure out where to place his hands without actually touching her, but she grabs his hands, positions them, and they begin dancing. Being in such close physical proximity to someone else (especially a girl) is unsettling, but some small part of him finds it nice.

As they move, he remembers to be mindful of where he steps, recalls the advice his mother sent about always looking at his date’s face rather than her chest when he wasn’t looking at his feet, and eventually, he feels himself relaxing.

When the ball’s over and they’re walking back to the common room, he finds himself asking, “Hey, Bulstrode, if I’d asked you to the Yule Ball without Nott being involved, would you have said yes?”

“Why would you have asked me, then?”

He doesn’t answer.

When they get back to the common room, Blaise ignores all the kissing couples and extends his hand. “Thank you for coming with me.”

She shakes it. “Thank you for inviting me. Night, Zabini.”

“Night, Bulstrode,” Blaise says.

He watches her heads to the girls’ dorm.

Her cat jumps down from besides Nott and follows her.

Blaise stares at Nott, and Nott briefly cocks his head before getting up and going to the boys’ dorm.


End file.
